Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 December 2025
187. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation to provide an update on the four legacy actions due, as outlined in the quarter 1 2025 progress report (details supplied); to outline which actions they are; the reason for the delay; the state of the progress to date; and a timeline for completion, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [72938/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Climate Action Plan 2025 (CAP25) details a range of climate policies and measures to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions and meet the Government’s legally binding national climate objective.
To track delivery progress, the Department of the Taoiseach continues to prepare quarterly progress reports on CAP25, in collaboration with all implementing Departments.
The Quarter 1 Progress Report of CAP25 is the most recently published by the Department of the Taoiseach on 17 July, and details progress on the new actions that were due for completion in Q1 2025. The Q1 Progress Report focuses on the six sectors with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, as well as on cross-cutting actions. The report provides updates on sectoral Key Performance Indicators, emissions trends and high impact case studies. My Department has responsibility for reporting actions both for the Department itself, and for the Office of Public Works. Both my Department and the OPW had no new actions to report on for Q1 2025.
The Department and the OPW had 4 legacy actions incomplete from CAP23/24. These actions, and the latest updates on their progress, are presented in tabular form below:
|
Action # |
Action |
Lead |
Update at Q1 2025 |
|
AD/24/2 |
Complete a review of the national Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment to assess the potential impacts of climate change on flooding and flood risk across Ireland |
OPW (Reporting lead: DPER) |
Review of the national Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment to assess the potential impacts of climate change on flooding and flood risk across Ireland has been completed and the overview report has been published. (assets.gov.ie/static/documents/2._The_Review_of_the_Review_of_the_National_Preliminary_Floodrisk_Assessment_PFRA_Engl.pdf) |
|
BE/24/21 |
Develop a programme for the retrofit of traditional and historic buildings as part of OPW Pathfinder programme |
OPW (Reporting lead: DPER) |
The OPW has commenced mapping locations of historic and traditional buildings in relation to proximity to current District Heat Systems. Following this study it is planned to map out potential connections with significant energy users within the historic and traditional buildings portfolio. |
|
BE/24/23 |
Integrate learnings from exemplar buildings into new OPW projects - Enhanced design and building plans for alternative construction materials |
OPW (Reporting lead: DPENDR) |
Tom Johnson House: Deep Retro Fit Project was substantially completed in Q4 2023, with furniture fit-out being undertaken in Q1 2024. The client (Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications) subsequently moved into the building on a phased basis. The post-project review will be undertaken following the end of the defects liability period at the end of Q4 2024. The review is expected to be complete by Q4 2025 allowing for the building to operate over a twelve month cycle from the date of full occupancy. The monitoring and comparative analysis of the building performance will be completed at the same time. Once the post-project review has been completed, OPW will integrate the learnings from this exemplar building into new OPW projects. Casino Marino: A preliminary design is being enhanced to improve its functionality while significantly reducing the initial overall operational and embodied carbon, below current regulated requirements. The design will adopt innovative technology and will aim to reuse existing material (where possible) and adopt the principles of circularity. The OPW are engaging with site owners (Dublin City Council) to agree the terms of a land transfer and/ or an interim license to proceed with preliminary stage site investigations. The OPW anticipated making a submission for Planning Permission in Q4 2025 |
|
GV/23/4 |
Develop proposals on how individual sectors could bear any EU compliance costs for the State arising from failure to reach sectoral targets |
DPENDR |
In February 2023, DPER and DECC published a joint research paper as part of the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGEES) Spending Review 2022 series titled “Estimating the Potential Cost of Compliance with 2030 Climate & Energy Targets”, seeking to estimate the cost of compliance with Ireland's EU climate & energy targets in the event targets are not achieved. Concluding that there was insufficient information available at that time on compliance mechanisms within all relevant legislation to estimate the total cost, the authors proposed a working model for estimating the cost of compliance with the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) alone. The model outlined a range of potential cumulative costs between €3.5bn and €8.1bn for compliance with the ESR up to 2030. This was not a total compliance cost estimate, and was based on high levels of uncertainty, to be revised in future iterations of this work. Future data requirements in order to accurately estimate, assess and monitor compliance and the existing data limitations are discussed in that paper, available at assets.gov.ie/246850/5982d0ec-1590-4caf-8c40-ce8bf178f5fc.pdf . DPER, DECC, DFIN and D/Taoiseach are currently working together to evolve the evidence base on the potential costs of compliance arising for the State from established EU energy and climate targets. This work will build on previous findings and approaches undertaken by DECC and DPER as referenced above. All outputs of this work are based on high levels of uncertainty and will be kept under review. |
The Department of the Taoiseach will publish the next progress report in due course, and my understanding is that the Q2 and Q3 progress reports will be published concurrently.
